If inflated expectations are due largely to the media punditocracy (and I think that’s true because of the 24-hour news cycle AND the opposing media’s — in this case those against Obama — refusal to tamp down expectations or reflect changes in the president’s message; or worse, distort it), what’s a president or majority party to do? Short of rallying our country to war to defend ourselves (as Bush did), how can this country make the political progress necessary to do what Friedman rightly conceives: change our tax policies to build the infrastructure of the future, boost our natural attributes and let the forces of capitalism work to our advantages.

All presidents are patriots, no doubt. But could even an extraordinary politician be effective in a political environment in which you need a 61-39 percent majority in the Senate to pass your agenda, and you have 62 percent of the public so ignorant on the issues they still think Obama is a Muslim and many still think Iraq had WMDs? Is knowing the art of the deal, and its necessity, enough?